Jussie Smollett Faces Prison, Career Ruin if He Lied About Attack

Jussie Smollett is facing prison time and the implosion of his career if it turns out he lied about being the target of a hate crime, legal and public relations experts say.

“The best thing that Jussie can do is pray and pray a lot,” said Ronn Torossian, founder of 5W Public Relations. “If he made it up, he has big problems in both the court of law and the court of public opinion.”

The “Empire” star claimed he was beaten up on Jan. 29 by two men who used racial and homophobic slurs. Smollett’s co-stars and colleagues on “Empire,” celebrities such as Ellen Page and Zendaya, and public figures such as Sen. Kamala Harris rallied behind the actor, releasing statements of support. However, Smollett’s account is now being challenged, with police investigating whether or not he paid two acquaintances, Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, to stage the attack.

Chicago police confirmed on Tuesday that they received a tip from someone claiming to have seen the three men together in an elevator of Smollett’s apartment building on the evening of the attack. However, later in the day, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted that the tip was unfounded.

Related

If Smollett falsified a police report, the charge is a Class 4 felony in Illinois, and carries a potential sentence of one to three years in prison. Smollett could also be ordered to pay restitution to compensate for the cost of the Chicago Police Department investigation.

“It’s a very, very, very serious situation,” said Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor who now works in criminal defense in Chicago. “He’s got some very significant exposure.”

Smollett told police that two men attacked him at 2 a.m., poured bleach on him, and put a noose around his neck. He also claimed they told him that it was “MAGA country,” a reference to Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Chicago investigators are now seeking to speak with Smollett.

Federal investigators are also probing a threatening letter that was sent to the “Empire” set. The letter included homophobic language and contained a white powder, which was later determined to be a crushed painkiller tablet. Should that letter turn out to be fake, federal prosecutors could also pursue a mail fraud charge, legal experts say.

Andrew Weisberg, a former prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, said Smollett could get probation, assuming that he has a clean record. Update: NBC News reported Tuesday, and Variety confirmed, that Smollett pleaded no contest in 2007 to three misdemeanor counts stemming from a DUI incident in Los Angeles, including one count of giving false information to the police. According to the criminal complaint filed by the L.A. City Attorney’s office, Smollett gave a false name, pretending to be his brother Jake. He was sentenced to three years of probation.

Weisberg also said prosecutors may face pressure not to be lenient.

“It’s a very high-profile case,” he said. “Prosecutors tend to be tougher because everybody’s watching. … I think they may come down hard, in terms of not reducing it to a misdemeanor.”

Steve Greenberg, a Chicago defense attorney, said prosecutors could also file a charge of obstruction of justice. He said it was likely, though, that Smollett would be allowed to plead to a misdemeanor, and not serve jail time.

“They’re not going to ruin a guy’s life over this,” Greenberg said. “People make false reports all the time to the police. They get in a DUI, they call police and say, ‘My car was stolen.’ Ninety percent of the time, even if they’re charged with a felony, those people end up pleading to a misdemeanor.”

Smollett has retained two criminal defense attorneys, Victor Henderson and Todd Pugh. They have denied that Smollett staged the attack, and said he will continue to cooperate.

“His lawyers may be having a psychiatrist examine the guy so they could prepare some kind of psychiatric defense,” Turner said.

Smollett, like celebrity fabulists such as Lance Armstrong and Ryan Lochte, may see endorsement opportunities and roles dry up if he is found to have been untruthful. Public relations experts say he will need to demonstrate that he’s learned a lesson.

“If he made this up, he broke the trust of a lot of his fans,” said Ray Drasnin, founder of Purple Penguin PR. “Say you lied and you’re sorry for that lie. Apologize to the people who have supported you, promise to make it up, and find a cause that’s near and dear to your heart and devote yourself to it.”

Richard Levick, chairman and CEO of LEVICK, said people shouldn’t rush to judgment regarding Smollet and cautioned that there are still, in the words of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, “too many unknown unknowns.” Yet if Smollett did fabricate the attack, Levick says he needs to be more proactive.

“He needs to get ahead of this as much as he can,” he said. “He needs to go see the police. He needs to apologize. He needs to make the announcement about what happened instead of letting the facts leak out. If he lied, there’s no excuse, but there may be some explanation.”

Sign Up for Daily Insider Newsletter

Growing regulatory encroachments into its games business, a smaller than expected spin-off for its music division, and a fourth quarter profits drop, pointed to a troubling year for Chinese tech giant Tencent. Its financial results for the full 2018 period, while delivering profits of nearly $1 billion a month, appeared to bear out that thesis. [...]

Splice, a favorite of music creators that allows access to a library of three million rights-cleared sounds, announced today that the company closed a Series C funding round at $57.5 million. That brings Splice’s total amount raised to roughly $102 million since its launch in 2013. It raised a Series B in November of 2017. [...]

WGA leaders are set to meet Wednesday night with a group of showrunners who are raising concerns about the guild’s handling of negotiations with talent agents over the issue of packaging fees and agency-affiliated productions. The meeting is set for 7:30 p.m. at WGA West headquarters. WGA West president David Goodman is expected to attend. [...]

A horse-racing announcer has sued the Weinstein Co., claiming that the company infringed on his trademarked phrase in a 2014 Bill Murray movie. Dave Johnson is the man behind “And down the stretch they come!,” which he began using while calling races in Illinois in the 1960s. The phrase took off when Johnson moved to [...]

Mom + Pop Music has promoted Hallie Anderson to co-GM and head of marketing and Jessica Page to co-GM and head of digital, the company announced today. They had previously served as VP of marketing and VP of digital strategy, respectively. “Being able to promote, empower and support Hallie and Jess in their new positions [...]

What kind of a boss will Disney be? That’s a question facing employees at 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, National Geographic Partners, FX Networks, and other assorted parts of Rupert Murdoch’s former media empire. Wednesday was their first full day as staffers of the Walt Disney Co. and the initial moves have done little to [...]

Jay Wilson has been named VP of publicity for Mascot Label Group, the company announced today. A veteran of Republic, Glassnote and Universal Records, In his new position Wilson will conceive and implement media strategies for the company and its roster of artists such as Beth Hart, James Morrison, P.O.D., Robert Randolph and the Family [...]